Older Americans Act

A relatively new and unusual development--private corporations buying elder care services for their employees from public sector agencies--offers benefits but carries the risk of neglecting senior citizens with the greatest economic or social need. This report discusses (1) the status of state policies that permit elder care contracts between corporations and area agencies on aging and (2) whether such policies adequately ensure that their public missions will be preserved when area agencies on aging enter into corporate elder care contracts. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Public/Private Elder Care Partnerships: Balancing Benefit and Risk, by Jane L. Ross, Associate Director for Income Security Issues, before the Subcommittee on Human Services, House Select Committee on Aging. GAO/T-HRD-92-45, July 9, 1992 (14 pages).

GAO found that: (1) AOA concerns are well-founded but more actions are needed to curb public-mission conflicts; (2) 45 states and the District of Columbia permit corporate elder care contracts with area agencies on aging, and over fifty percent encourage such arrangements; (3) state and area agencies encourage corporate elder care to increase funds to further public-mission objectives, but most state corporate elder care policies conflict and inhibit states' public-mission responsibilities; (4) most states' targeting criteria and methods are inadequate in targeting the elderly with the greatest need; and (5) state policies often do not address protection of public-mission responsibilities, creating gaps in elder care policies that increase the risk of conflicts between private and public objectives.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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